Critic Reviews

MobyRanks are listed below. You can read here for more information about MobyRank.

100

Techtite

Sure, it was quite violent, though compared to most Movies, TV, and the evening news, it was a walk in the park. It's effective feeling of an interactive Schwarzenegger film was appealing to any action movie fan. Personally, I didn't like the finale of the game, nor its evolving story (the preface in the game manual was basically...it). However, it inspired so many, many, many award-caliber fare in later years, including Star Wars Dark Forces, the cowboy western Outlaws, and 3D mystery adventures like Pandora Directive. This demands that the game, if just for its technology, deserves a Deep Impact rating, regardless of two or three teen psychos that illegally played it (it's labeled for sale only to ages 17 and up). One thing is certain: To say Doom didn't have a "deep impact" on the gaming community would be quite an understatement.

I played through the shareware campaign before writing this. And even reading this over I don’t really feel I’ve given this game justice. If you feel you want to give doom a try, its available on Steam, under the title Ultimate Doom, which contains an episode that wasn’t available at the original release.

If you haven’t played it before, hopefully now you have some encouragement to take a look. For better or worse, it’s certainly one of the most influential titles in gaming, and following Apogee’s shareware model (the first 9-level episode was distributed as a free demo), as well as Doom‘s subsequent port to every device known to man, both ensure that the game got into the hands of anyone who wanted to play it. Its fast, simple action, smooth engine, impressive effects, multiplayer, and modability all helped it stick around. If you’re playing an action game from the last 15 years, with friends over Xbox Live or PSN, or enjoying the unique benefits of gaming on a PC, some part of that game owes its genesis or refinement to Doom and its community.

If you like Quake and Duke Nukem, there is no way you can't like Doom, one of the original first-person shoot-em-up games created (Wolfenstein started it, baby!). The good thing about game designers is that they know what the public wants: a place to release their pent-up agression and frustrations. What better way to express your inner rage than in the corridors and catacombs of Doom?

It's just a shame that the number of enemies is fairly limited. After a while, the multiple pump-action, blood-spraying demise of yet another pink monster is only marginally satisfying. lf whenever you turned a corner you could be met by some new, more grotesque|y deformed creature than the last, then at least Doom could boast that it had replaced gameplay with real horror.
As it is, once the power of Doom's graphics has worn off (they're amazing, so give that at least a week or two), you’lI be longing for something new in this game.
lf only you could talk to these creatures, then perhaps you could try and make friends with them, form alliances... Now, that would be interesting.